Our attention was now directed to receiving from the _Sirius_ the provisions she had brought us; and as the flour had been packed in bags at the Cape of Good Hope, the coopers were immediately employed in setting up and preparing casks for its reception on shore. These being soon completed, the flour was landed and deposited in the store. This, with the building and covering-in of a new hut for the smith's work, formed the principal labour of the convicts at Sydney during this month. The boats in the colony not being found sufficient for the purpose of transporting provisions from the store at Sydney to the settlement at Rose Hill, a launch or hoy was put upon the stocks, under the direction of Mr. Reid, the carpenter of the _Supply_, to be employed for that and other necessary purposes. She was to be built of the timber of the country, and to carry ten tons. From that settlement, early in the month, two soldiers of the detachment doing duty there were reported to be missing; and, though parties had been sent out daily in different directions to seek for them, yet all was unavailing. It was supposed that they must have lost their way in some of the thick and almost impenetrable brushes which were in the vicinity of Rose Hill, and had there perished miserably. They had gone in search of the sweet tea plant already mentioned; and perhaps when they resigned themselves to the fate which they did not see how to avoid, oppressed with hunger, and unable to wander any farther, they may have been but a short distance from the relief they must so earnestly have desired. A dog that was known to have left the settlement with them reached Rose Hill, almost famished, nine days after they had left it. The extreme danger attendant on a man's going beyond the bounds of his own knowledge in the forests of an unsettled country could no where be more demonstrable than in this. To the westward was an immense open track before him, in which, if unbefriended by either sun or moon, he might wander until life were at an end. Most of the arms which extended into the country from Port Jackson and the harbour on each side of Port Jackson, were of great length, and to round them without a certain and daily supply of provisions was impossible*. [* In many of these arms, when sitting with my companions at my ease in a boat, I have been struck with horror at the bare idea of being lost in them; as, from the great similarity of one cove to another, the recollection would be bewildered in attempting to determine any relative situation. It is certain, that if destroyed by no other means, insanity would accelerate the miserable end that must ensue.]